Since it’s nearly the holidays, I’m sure that the story of Apollo 8 is on everyone’s mind.

Well, perhaps not.

Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to leave Earth orbit and fly to the moon, orbiting it on Christmas Eve 1968. The crew broadcast back live TV views of the lunar surface from close up. If you were a young space fan at the time, it was tremendously exciting and felt like an epochal moment in history.

For the first time, mankind had learned how to leave home and go explore. Many Apollo veterans have said that they found the Apollo 8 mission more significant than the Apollo 11 moon landing seven months later. It also provided an uplifting end to an other­wise grim year, marked by unrest in Europe and the U.S. and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

Apollo 8 is remembered as a triumph, and deservedly so. However, when examined in the light of what happened to Apollo 13 a little over a year later, it becomes clear that it could easily have become a disaster.

Apollo 8 was originally intended to perform the first test of the so called lunar module, the lander portion of the Apollo spacecraft, in Earth orbit. However, the development of this lander fell behind schedule. Since this era was the height of the Space Race and the Soviets were rumored to be about to launch a lunar mission of their own, NASA could not afford to wait for the lander to be ready. Instead, in a bold move, it was decided to have Apollo 8 orbit the moon without a lunar module. The crew flew in the command module reentry craft, attached only to its service module that was equipped with rockets, oxygen tanks, antennas, and other equipment.

On Apollo 13 one of these oxygen tanks exploded, causing all of the spacecraft’s oxygen supply to be vented into space and crippling the power and life support systems. The crew was in extreme danger and, in a story that is familiar from the film Apollo 13, only survived because they were able to use their attached lunar module as a “lifeboat.” If Apollo 8 had had the same type of oxygen tank explosion, the crew would not have had this option for survival and the mission would have been a disaster.

So, what does this have to do with myeloma?

In 2008, I was on what felt like the cusp of an Apollo 8-style success versus an Apollo-8-with-a-blown-tank-style failure.

Let me explain.

After my diagnosis, induction therapy, and stem cell transplant, I started back at my job as a professor of aerospace engineering, teaching the same courses as before I had become sick.

Strangely, at that point I got what definitely seemed to me to be genuine depression. This surprised me, as I was back to feeling physically more-or-less “normal.” However, I have read that it is not all that uncommon to have these kinds of feelings after going through a critical illness.

I realized at that point that I really had to make some sort of a change. In particular, I knew I needed to change jobs, even though I would be uprooting my family from our friends and neighbors. I was lucky that a position shortly came up at NASA that piqued my interest. As soon as I started the application process for this job, my depression lifted.

When the formal job offer from NASA came through, I was definitely inclined to accept it. However, there were some practical issues that made me fear that I could be making a bad decision. For instance, I had accu­mu­lated a great deal of sick leave at the university, and would be restarting with essentially zero leave at the new job. Also, a faculty position is quite flexible, allowing you to adjust your schedule if there are days of the week when you can’t work. I had done this while waiting for my transplant. I rearranged my classes to avoid teaching Mondays and Tuesdays, when my dex schedule made me feel like I had the flu.

I would be giving up all of these advantages, which would only pay off if I had an extended period of good health on the new job and actually enjoyed the new job.

What worried me the most was that I was just coming through a series of rather eventful Marches: in March 2006, I was diagnosed; in March 2007, I was over my stem cell transplant; and in March 2008, I was starting work at NASA. What if I relapsed in March 2009?

It felt like I was on the cusp of an Apollo 8-style success if I took the new job at NASA and stayed healthy versus an Apollo-8-with-a-blown-tank-style failure if I took the new job at NASA and relapsed soon thereafter.

I know we all face decisions like this in the course of our disease. The reason I finally made the move to NASA was that staying in academia began to only seem to make sense if I could make use of all that sick leave. It felt uncomfortably like waiting to get sick again.

Fortunately, all went well with the move. However, it could just as easily have been a bad mistake if I had relapsed early. There can definitely be a thin line between “bold” and “foolhardy;” no matter how carefully you weigh the pros and cons, luck plays a role.

When Apollo 8 reappeared from behind the moon after their scheduled “trans-Earth injection” rocket firing in December 1968, James Lovell (the only astronaut to fly on both the Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 missions) had the task of reporting to the ground how things went. They would either be on their way back to Earth, if the firing was successful, or stuck forever in lunar orbit, if it was not.

As we all know, it worked. Lovell's report, in its entirety, was: “Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus.”

Happy holidays!